Our dog Roxy has a friend. Squirrel hangs out in our oak trees or on the roof and waits for her to come out into the yard. He chirps and chatters and makes a ruckus. He acts like this is HIS yard. Roxy knows better. A showdown occurs every day. I wouldn’t mind except our petite 15 pound Bichon has an enormous set of lungs. When she starts barking, it echoes off the Rocky Mountains. It sets off car alarms. The coyotes start howling out in the open space. I can’t stand it!

After a few years of this relationship, I’ve learned squirrel doesn’t like the smell of vinegar. I sprayed in his general direction a couple of times when I was trying to get Roxy’s attention. Now all I have to do is step outside and Squirrel bolts. He flies through the air from the roof or from the tops of our trees all the way to the ground. I’ve finally earned some respect.

You should check out my Hawaiian friend’s blog and be sure to click on his surfing video on the side bar. It is waaaay too cool! You’ll see a few sexy photos since he posted a picture of discretely (barely), covered boobs every day in October for breast cancer awareness. They are his top posts!

54 thoughts on “Roxy and Squirrel and the Contest”

People are feeding the coyotes here so I have to be careful during the daytime now too! I have a squirrel feeder where you put a dried out corn cob on a nail, but I hate to encourage this little rascal…

It doesn’t prevent them from destroying gardens, but this squirrel can’t get away from me fast enough since I sprayed a few times. I guess if I made a replica scarecrow of myself, it might keep him from my tomatoes! He ate all of mine last summer. Good Luck!

Doh. Do you have any other tips for protecting your veggies from their little scavenging mitts? (Not that I won’t consider fashioning a scarecrow to haunt the squirrels and small children in my neighborhood!)

Hahaha! I would buy that dog wire fencing which is a little heavier gauge than chicken wire and fence in your row of tomatoes. You could place it on top and just remove it when you want to pick them. 🙂

Squirrels, yes. Coyotes, no. Good plan. Molly has a couple of friendly squirrel that enjoy running laps down the fence. (We’ve feed birds and squirrels during bitter cold weather) Luckily, Molly doesn’t bark – just runs with smiles..
But the 2 Bichons next door get let out and bark like crazy. Then Molly has to tell them to shut up because they are scaring the squirrels…eventually Everyone has to go inside for a bit of quiet time.

The first two years of Roxy’s life, she never barked. Then we went on vacation and she learned. Oh, how she learned. I swear she takes a deep breath and then lets it rip! She just went outside and I bet you any money, is looking for Squirrel I’m not hearing any barking yet…
Thanks for commenting Phil! It’ s a quiet Wednesday here on the Wild Ride…

Roxy reminds me so much of my Dad’s dog. She was a Bichon and went everywhere with him. I think everyone of his children were jealous of that dog.
Great caption! I’m looking forward to exploring Kippfu’s blog.

Oh good! Kippfu is pretty funny.
Bichons are great companions. Ever since Roxy had those stones removed, she has energy to spare! She gets pretty bored with me… 🙂 It doesn’t help that it’s mating season. She gets pretty riled up!

Coyotes, skunks, grey fox, raccoons. We get quite the menagerie here. I have yet to see a mountain lion but they do pass thru here. One of our cats is an avid hunter so squirrels, chipmunks etc. do not stay long. The baby foxes were adorable and got along with the cats for most of the summer.

That sounds wonderful! There even was a moose sighting in our Niwot neighborhood last year. I was so bummed to miss it. I love wildlife, I just can’t handle the barking. This squirrel has Roxy’s number!!

I live in a city. There is n organic urban garden next to my apartment building. There are squirrels. They are on our porch in the trash and generally behave with impunity. Heck, they’re cute and the garden owners know I’ll play the squirrel residency card if they decide to convert the lot from a compost heap to a cultivated area. I CAN be persuasive..

Good for you! I have a photo somewhere of a squirrel asleep in those same oak trees the first fall after planting them. I was so excited. It was our first squirrel! I wish this one didn’t tease the dog so much. He has a love/hate relationship with Roxy. 🙂

We have raccoons and skunks, neither of which I encourage my dog to play with. The coons are just plain vicious and the skunks are . . . well, skunks. Fortunately they mostly come out at night so it’s not a problem, unless one happens to be in the fenced yard when we let our Sherlock out to do his business before bed time. Then it gets a little dicey. Fortunately, our dog is pretty much a wimp so he’ll bark and chase then quickly retreat. However, that’s all the time a skunk needs as we found out when he was a pup.

You are so lucky! It’s the highlight of Roxy’s day and the bane of my existence.
We have raccoons and skunks, but so far so good. She loves to sit up on a rock and bark at nothing every dusk. At least she comes when called then. I try to close her doggy door beforehand. It’s as if she’s daring all the coyotes in the neighborhood. Sheesh!
Thanks Patricia!

To be fair to Michelangelo (named for the Ninja Turtle, called Mick for short), he was just too good natured. He got on fine with Tom, our younger cat, but Tabby, the older one, hated him. She hated Tom too, so maybe that’s why he and Mick got on so well!

Glad to be back. I decided that if I’m not gonna blog, I can still comment!

How cool to see a roadrunner! You must be in the southwest. Two moose walked across the bottom of peak 7 at Breck two years ago and one waltzed into our town outside of Boulder! I would love to see a mountain lion sometime!
Thanks so much!

We have a black lab that’s about 130 pounds and a miniature Yorkie. Go figure, the lab is a softie, while the Yorkie kept strays, squirrels, rats and snakes out of our yard. LOL. Little doggies always have the most heart; it sounds like Roxy’s no different. Rock it out, Roxy. We have a rather large rabbit that frequents our yard and terrorizes our grape vine. It’s cute and all, but I’m fairly possessive over our grapes (they’re tart and juicy and all kinds of yummy). One time it ate so much that it passed out laying on the grate that holds up the grapes. Mathair named him Peter the Pest in honor of Peter Cottontail. Of course, once you name something you become attached and now I can’t sick my cat on the fat rabbit when it comes to rampage my grapes because Mathair thinks it’s cute. 😉

It sounds like a wonderful garden. Your Yorkie sounds like a beast in his or her own mind! I have no love for rabbits after they destroyed my tulips. All I have to say is the word “rabbit” and Roxy flies out her doggy door after them. Squirrel is her size too, but if she is around a big dog, she freaks out! She did bolt after a coyote last year. That was crazy!

Susie, I have the perfect solution for the critter problem, both squirrels and coyotes, (and other critters too). It’s called a 12 guage shotgun, and it works every time !!! Now I’m not espousing violence, mind you ! 🙂 Hahaha !!!

I LOVE it! We have a pond that supports all kinds of wildlife. I have binoculars next to my sink. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a little girl. 🙂
I’m worried we’ll find this squirrel has made a nest in our attic. There’s gotta be a reason he’s so territorial!!!

OMG, our dogs are sisters under the fur. There’s a berry tree right by our deck that the squirrels like to frequent. When Sally sees them from the living room window, she goes CRA-ZY, barking and chasing her tail to get out and protect her territory.

As soon as I open the door, even though they are only 5 feet away from her, off they go from tree to roof to tree until they are way up high, out of reach, with her sitting at the bottom.

I suppose the equivalent of squirrels in Oz are the possums. Some consider them pests, but I love the furry little things. And they are very clever at surviving in their extremely compromised urban habitats. The greater pest, in my book, are the cats that hunt them. My neighbours cat, Lollipop, used to tease Pepi silly, to the point he would run and bark at the fence whether she was there or not! Sadly, she lost her play friend 😦

We had possums back in Wisconsin, but I’m not sure they live in Colorado. At least they don’t chatter like squirrels and the ones I remember, were nocturnal.
I would love to visit your part of the world someday and explore and discover all the different wildlife and habitats. 🙂
So sorry to hear about the loss of your pet. I think I remember when that happened. They do leave a hole.
Great to see you Alarna!

Funny you should mention this, Susie…
I went home last night and realized the neighborhood squirrels were chowing down on my Oreos.
Seriously. I’m going to kill the wife.
Okay, we both know I won’t but I’m pissed.

I had a groundhog hanging around the sub-basement (the sub-basement HE excavated) of my place a few years ago. And then…just like that, he was gone. Personally, I think he was using my place as a shag shack that he didn’t want the missus to know about…